Cyprus-Forum.com

[cannedmoose]

An interesting development. Is Blair preparing the ground for an informal discussion of Turkey's candidacy? Such an informal summit would certainly allow the UK to put the thumbscrews on those countries that oppose Turkey's candidacy.

UK to cancel formal October EU summit in favour of social model debate
05.08.2005 - 08:22 CET | By Honor Mahony EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The British EU presidency is to cancel the traditional formal meeting of European leaders in October in favour of an informal discussion on the future of the bloc's social model, German news agencies reported on Thursday (4 August).

The meeting, which would normally take place in Brussels, was supposed to concentrate on how to fund the EU in the future after the budget summit failed in June. Instead, this issue is expected to be largely left to the Austrian presidency beginning in January.

The informal nature of the meeting means that the 25 EU leaders will not be flanked by their foreign and financial ministers, which may lead to a more off-the-cuff discussion.

Europe's social model and what it means and how it can be adapted to survive in an increasingly globalised world is one of the key themes to be thrown up in recent months, particularly in the run up to the French referendum on the EU constitution.

One of the key reasons why French voters rejected the EU charter at the end of May was concern about their economic future, prompted by a feeling that workers from the new eastern European member states would take their jobs.

Feeling the heat of a suspected No vote as early as March, French president Jacques Chirac used an EU summit at the time to secure public backing by the bloc for its social model.

However, the problem is that there is no clear consensus what the European social model is and how it is best protected.

The whole issue was encapsulated in the debate about a proposed EU law to open the market in services.

Proponents of the legislation, which include Britain, Ireland and many of the new member states, argue thatby using such liberalising legislation that more jobs will be created, economic growth will be helped and Europe's social model will be able to survive.

Opponents, such as France and Germany, argue that this type of legislation risks driving social protection and wages downwards.

Having shouldered the blame for the failure of the June summit to agree on the future funding of the EU, British leader Tony Blair will be keen to sell his vision of a social Europe based on pragmatic growth strategies to the rest of the EU at the informal summit.

One of his key arguments during and after the bitter budget summit was that more should be spent on research and development rather than on policies such as supporting farmers.

At the beginning on the British EU presidency, Mr Blair said "I believe in Europe as a project with a strong social dimension".

He also pointed out that the "social model" is not to be abandoned, but put up for re-organisation and adjustment.

[2fan]

[azerbaijan...

Ataturk's aim was to modernize not europeanize!!

WRONG!!!!!!

Arab East=Primitive
Euro West= Modern

Please explain the difference to me. Ataturk(RIP), knew that the Islamic culture (which did not undergo a rainassance, like it's christian counterpart) was a tether into the dark ages. He very much looked to the west to modernize the republic. The closest west was Europe.

[2fan]

An interesting development. Is Blair preparing the ground for an informal discussion of Turkey's candidacy? Such an informal summit would certainly allow the UK to put the thumbscrews on those countries that oppose Turkey's candidacy.

UK to cancel formal October EU summit in favour of social model debate
05.08.2005 - 08:22 CET | By Honor Mahony EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The British EU presidency is to cancel the traditional formal meeting of European leaders in October in favour of an informal discussion on the future of the bloc's social model, German news agencies reported on Thursday (4 August).

The meeting, which would normally take place in Brussels, was supposed to concentrate on how to fund the EU in the future after the budget summit failed in June. Instead, this issue is expected to be largely left to the Austrian presidency beginning in January.

The informal nature of the meeting means that the 25 EU leaders will not be flanked by their foreign and financial ministers, which may lead to a more off-the-cuff discussion.

Europe's social model and what it means and how it can be adapted to survive in an increasingly globalised world is one of the key themes to be thrown up in recent months, particularly in the run up to the French referendum on the EU constitution.

One of the key reasons why French voters rejected the EU charter at the end of May was concern about their economic future, prompted by a feeling that workers from the new eastern European member states would take their jobs.

Feeling the heat of a suspected No vote as early as March, French president Jacques Chirac used an EU summit at the time to secure public backing by the bloc for its social model.

However, the problem is that there is no clear consensus what the European social model is and how it is best protected.

The whole issue was encapsulated in the debate about a proposed EU law to open the market in services.

Proponents of the legislation, which include Britain, Ireland and many of the new member states, argue thatby using such liberalising legislation that more jobs will be created, economic growth will be helped and Europe's social model will be able to survive.

Opponents, such as France and Germany, argue that this type of legislation risks driving social protection and wages downwards.

Having shouldered the blame for the failure of the June summit to agree on the future funding of the EU, British leader Tony Blair will be keen to sell his vision of a social Europe based on pragmatic growth strategies to the rest of the EU at the informal summit.

One of his key arguments during and after the bitter budget summit was that more should be spent on research and development rather than on policies such as supporting farmers.

At the beginning on the British EU presidency, Mr Blair said "I believe in Europe as a project with a strong social dimension".

He also pointed out that the "social model" is not to be abandoned, but put up for re-organisation and adjustment.

Nice post Mooseman. I gotta tell ya...I'm not a big fan of the ye olde Brit governments but Blair is different. Staunch American ally and believes that he's really doing the right thing. Having said that, I still don't believe that the Turks are gonna make it into the union.

[magikthrill]

britain = the EU's cancer currentcly spreading rapidly

Moderator's note. One liners such as this are inappropropriate and divert from the continuing theme of this thread. I have left it in this time, but please refrain from doing so in the future.

is that a threat mr. moose?

[ChomskyFan]

Care to expand on this?

America wants puppets in the EU, it currently has Britain and Poland, it wants Turkey too. So it can counterbalance the weight of France and Germany. British Foreign Policy for the past 400 years has been to prevent the Unification of Europe.

[cmantas_liberal]

ok folks, this my first entry and i registered just to give my view.

After a thorough reading i can make the following comments

1)Souda base is NOT an US base but it is a NATO base which is used not only from US but also from countries such as Belgium and Holland as a shooting range for patriot missiles and this is bringing a huge income to the base which is self-financed. Unlike Incirlik base, which is fully US bases, there is not any US base in Greece.

2) Refering to the Cypriot problem, i believe that Cyprus shall take actions in order to secure the protection of the turkish speaking cypriots from any action against them like terrorists of EOKA-B did 40 years ago and caused the turkish intervention and the same applies for the turkish speaking population, since MTM was also a terrorist organisation that killed ppl who did not support dektash and many greek speaking cypriots. So a basic requirement before moving ahead is that both sides will secure that all Cypriots will be safe and there will not be any racist activity against them.

3) Cyprus surely is NOT Greek. It shall create a distinctive culture that will maintain the cultural links with Greece but surely Cyprus is a sovereign country that needs to have its own identity that will respect all minorities including turkish speaking, armenians and all others.

4) Why EU is always the 'bad' and 'racist' guy? I think that Muslims are the guys who are violating human rights on every part of the Muslim world and they will need more than 500 years to reach the superiority of the free world, which is EU and USA. EU offered the Muslims the chance to get a proper job, educate their children and respect them and in contrast we have suicide bombs, ghettos and muslims working in EU that only want to blame europe for being so 'evil' against them.

Someone may say that only the 10-15% of Muslims are Jehadis but wtf? London bombers were some normal ppl who were recruited within the mosques?And i wonder..what the other muslims in Europe are doing when the Imams are praising Jehad? Since I did not see any reactions from the Muslim community I think that they are co-guilty with the folks that bombed London. I never read that any Muslim community expelled any Imam for preaching Jihad.

So...Do you think that there is place in civilized Europe for Muslim Turkey? I ve talked with many turks and even though they are secular, deep down they are bloody Muslims. They may drink beers and have sex but still they feel that they are muslims and the free world is their enemy. SO there is no reason to bring more muslims in our country which is EU.

Turkey can coperate with other oppresive-fascist regimes such as Russia (who cares for Russia? it is part of history), the nazi china (no 1 in executions, no human rights and the occupation of Tibet) and other 3rd world countries and bananas republic such as Azerbiajn and its magnificent dictator and many others. Frankly speaking... go on and do it... It would be funny to see Turkey in a Bananistan-Asian Union with Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. Just leave Europe alone, let us stop the expansion, excluding from EU the semi-barbarians in Bulgaria and Romania stop the bloody expansion.

EU can not go any further. There are some important issues to prioritize such as the lack of democracy, since 'we the ppl' are not listened from the decision makers, the waste of money on useless farmers from CAP and the implementation of the Lisbon package till 2010 in order to increase our competiveness and make some jobs based on the knowledge and the competence of our 'learning workers'.

Someone said that Asia will play a key role in few years..Even though I doubt, if you make it you ll may manage to increase yer macro economic indexes but still you will be barbarians abusing your women and having elitistic regimes such as in S.arabia, azer/an, UAE well..its funny...i cant think of any democratic regime in Middle East. Only Isreal and partly Palestine are electing their governments...all other countries are control from big families or from oligarchies. Even in Turkey the communist parties are on the run. Remember TKP and TKP/ML? till few years ago they were on the run, while DEHAP that got the 7% of the electory body in 2002 is banned!!! What sort of democracy is that? how can you ban the 7% of the electory body?

So let us make a pan-european referendum for turkey,and i am sure that the result will be a big NO.

5) Greece shall pull over as being a guarantee country, since Cyprus is an independent country and not a colony nor it needs pimpers and let Cyprus to have negotiations with T/C excluding the turks. This is clearly between the cypriots and not btw Turkey,Greece,UK and Cyprus. In addition TRNC is a independent country..so why dont they negotiate and they ask for help from turkey?

laters

[ChomskyFan]

I never read that any Muslim community expelled any Imam for preaching Jihad.

Thats because the two are mutually inseperable. You can't remove Jihad from the Islamic Equation, it's one of the key teachings.

I agree with you though. But you don't seem to keen on Megalos I8ea, why is this?

[Murtaza]

Someone may say that only the 10-15% of Muslims are Jehadis but wtf? London bombers were some normal ppl who were recruited within the mosques?And i wonder..what the other muslims in Europe are doing when the Imams are praising Jehad? Since I did not see any reactions from the Muslim community I think that they are co-guilty with the folks that bombed London. I never read that any Muslim community expelled any Imam for preaching Jihad.

what a stupidness, I never read any christian community expelled their priests for crusader, and what serbs did muslims. So I think they areo-guilt. Also USA people are coguilt of crimes made muslim by Israel,so what is problem?Killers killed killers. what a stupid way of thinking.By The way,you greeks are also co-guilty of serbian massacre, you helped them. and 100 of you killed innocent muslim too. They are living their live happly in Greece.

[Murtaza]

They may drink beers and have sex but still they feel that they are muslims and the free world is their enemy.

Another stupidness, do you realy so much stupid? we muslims hate your freedom? hehe

Just think a little

[ChomskyFan]

what a stupidness, I never read any christian community expelled their priests for crusader, and what serbs did muslims. So I think they areo-guilt. Also USA people are coguilt of crimes made muslim by Israel,so what is problem?Killers killed killers. what a stupid way of thinking.By The way,you greeks are also co-guilty of serbian massacre, you helped them. and 100 of you killed innocent muslim too. They are living their live happly in Greece.

What, the massacre and Ethnic cleansing that was perpetuated against the Serbs by The Ottomans Underlings (Kosovans) for 400 years? There was no genocide in Kosovo, this has been proven time and time again. I am glad to assist Serbia in their Military Operations to protect the Serbian Minority in Kosovo.